Marni Soupcoff: Has Preston Manning lost his mind?

I’m normally a big Preston Manning fan, and I respect all he’s done, including his principled efforts to unite the right in this country and his ambitious Manning Centre for Building Democracy. Preston’s a good guy. Which makes it all the more awkward for me to ask the question that’s been preying on my mind all morning: Has Preston Manning lost his mind?

. In it, Manning presents four of the silliest ideas I’ve ever heard for improving the nation’s capital, including building a Confederation Theme Park (he’s been on about this crazy Wally World scheme before) and using bigger flags throughout town — “like those huge flags flown at Husky service stations in the West.”

Sorry, Preston, but I think most Canadians are actually quite happy that Ottawa doesn’t look like a giant truck stop — and don’t think reversing the trend would be an improvement.

Nor does the theme part idea — which would include giving several hectares of space to each province and territory and inviting them to build and landscape a pavilion to reflect their character — inspire much confidence. Once can pretty much assume inanely politically correct results with boring tokens to try to please every regional interest group: cheesy First Nations Pow Wows for Ontario, little fake smiley-faced petroglyph souvenirs for B.C., stuffed caribou for Nunavut. And maybe a few of these attractions, which editorial board Lorne Gunter thinks would be at home in such a park:

Ipsos-Reid Poll-a-coaster; Whack-a-PM with busts of each of Canada’s PMs popping up for players to beat down with a foam mallet; Have-Not Province Cyclone of Cash, Stimulus Project Shopping Spree, Regional Plate-Spinning demonstration (no one has ever succeeded at it for more than a few minutes), Liberal Leader Merry-Go-Round.

A fine list.

Which should put to rest the Canada theme park idea for good.

But Preston doesn’t stop there. He also imagines an “Ottawa Ambassador Corps,” which would apparently involve local hairstylists and cab drivers voluntarily dressing up in little uniforms and making “a special effort to attractively and charmingly represent Ottawa to those who visit the national capital.”

Right. Because the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the words “attractive” and “charming” is a cabbie. And hair stylists love nothing more than being told what to wear — especially when it’s the exact same thing thirty styleless cab drivers are also sporting when they pick you up at the airport. Oh my. And this idea is probably

better

than Preston’s final one: holding a National Capital Conference every three years to give provincial bureaucrats and officials from world capitals a free ticket to Ottawa to mingle, babble, spend taxpayer money and perhaps ride a prairie-inspired flat roller coaster or two in each other’s company.

If anyone should know better than to try to let government forcibly engineer a better city, it’s Preston Manning. His suggestions for bettering Ottawa are a good reminder of why.